Tea Eggs

When I used to live in New York, I cooked pretty often. There was a time period when I would stay in every Sunday night, flip through my Food + Wine magazines, pick a recipe and make a nice dinner. I always found those days to be quite therapeautic, and over time, I enjoyed the idea of cooking and creating something from scratch. Unlike many other Chinese families, cooking was never a big deal in mine. My parents both worked long hours, and my mom, being the career woman that she was, was not your type to be whipping up dishes in the kitchen. The only person who cooked really well in our family was my grandmother, but unfortunately, when she passed away, she took all of her knowledge with her. Sometimes I wish I had the chance to watch and learn, because my grandmother made some of the finest Vietnamese and Chinese dishes I've ever tasted.

Ever since I moved to China, my cooking passion has died. When I lived in the school dorms at SHS, my kitchen was so dinky that I didn't even bother to cook. Plus I never had the intention of staying longer than 10 months, so I figured there wasn't any point to buy kitchen utensils anyway. I literally had 1 bowl, 1 plate, 1 fork and 2 pairs of chopsticks for the entire school year. Now that I live in Beijing and have a "grown-up" apartment with dishes and all, I'm thinking about picking up this hobby again and taking a serious interest in it (just like blogging haha).

Anyway, to kick-off my hobby, I decided to post this recipe for making tea eggs, a typical savory Chinese snack . A close friend of mine from New York recently sent me this, so I'm going to try to make it next week.

Tea eggs

8 eggs

water

3 tablespoons salt (can be quite liberal with salt)

2 tablespoons Chinese five spice powder

1 star anise

1 tea bag (any kind of plain black tea)

Directions

1. Bring the eggs to the boil and simmer for 3-5 minutes.

2. Drain and cool. When cool enough to handle, gently crack the egg's shell all over without removing the shell.

3. Place back in the pan, cover the eggs with water, add the remaining ingredients and bring back to boil, turn down and simmer on low heat for an hour or more, this helps the flavors infuse the egg.

4. Drain once more. Eggs can be eaten hot or cold and should have an attractive marble effect.